Hello there,
There are many things I’ve missed during the pandemic, but one of the things I’ve missed the most is people, so much so that some of my most vivid quarantine dreams are of parties and family reunions or people I haven’t seen in years. The pandemic has made me appreciate friendships so much more and see firsthand why human connection is so important for mental health.
Watch
Tuca and Bertie (Netflix) is one of the weirdest, most delightful animated shows I’ve seen that captures a bizarre but wonderful friendship between two women who happen to be bird-people (one is a toucan, the other is a songbird). They’re voiced by two extremely funny comedians, Ali Wong and Tiffany Haddish, and the animation is wacky and incredibly creative and really fun to watch.
Even though the story takes place in this strange world, the themes are very relatable: figuring out your career as a young adult, relationships, co-habitation and darker ones like trauma and alcoholism. After the first season, Netflix cancelled the show, likely because of poor viewership, but thankfully Adult Swim picked it up.
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How To With John Wilson (HBO) is a very strange documentary-style show that is honestly hard to describe. Each episode dives into a seemingly banal question that ends up yielding surprising results. It is largely set in New York, with a lot of random footage that reveals the tapestry of the city, the funny and horrifying and bizarre daily moments. While deeply weird, it’s extremely empathetic, and includes one of the wildest scenes I have ever seen on TV (see the How to Cover Your Furniture episode). But it’s the final episode of the season that was a real kick in the gut: when the pandemic arrives. It’s deeply upsetting to witness all over again, but that episode features a friendship between the hipster documentarian and his elderly babushka landlord that’s really moving and had me in a puddle of tears.
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The documentary Assassins (on demand) is not, on its face, about friendship at all: it’s about one of the most insane geopolitical criminal plots in recent history (fellow IR nerd friends, you will especially like this one). The friendship that blossoms between the two women accused of murder is an unexpected and incredibly touching piece of the movie.
Read
I know it’s cliché, but I enjoyed Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend series. I liked the first book the best, and then the second one a little less, and the third and fourth books the least. Overall, they're fun to read, take a significant investment of time, give a nice virtual escape to Italy, and feature a fascinating friendship between two women who grew up together. (And if you like them, there are two seasons of the show on HBO, which I also enjoyed.)
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If you've been there, done that, try The Island of Sea Women, an epic tale of some of the last traditional female free divers in South Korea and the close friendship between two of the women. (If you're unfamiliar with the haenyeo, they're absolutely fascinating.)
Follow
There’s a German photographer I follow on Instagram who posts very cute photos of owls, but also, very importantly, an owl hanging out with its dog friend. (By the way, Happy Superb Owl Day!)
Do
Text a friend you haven't heard from in a while. This week one of my group chats just exchanged videos of pandas frolicking after the recent snowstorm.
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Until next week,
Rachel